Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-02-28
ond empire is not with France to-day, but is

| ond empire is not with France to-day, but is
with the rival empire across the Rhine.
| Prussia has become the empire and the old
| opposition cry of 1866 against Bismarck
| one man power!-has come to full realiza-
| ton. The States have had union, a national
sentiment and national policy, and what do
| they think of them? The discomfort of the
people has not subsided; poverty has in
creased: emigration has gone on at won
derful rate. The people turned away from
loyalty to princes and nobility, the old tie
that bound land and people and government,
and their golden traditions are gone. Great
estates have absorbed the land and the young
have no home feeling and no incentive to
love the native soil. There are many indica-
tions upon the surface to show state of
things far different to that of 1870. Expert
ence has taught them that they have ex-
changed such liberties as their lazy and friv-
olous kinglets allowed them for menial SER
vice to mighty and all absorbing power
that grinds on remorselessly, a power only
great in itself and reducing al outside to a
ittleness more beggarly than before.
The Germans have stood for independence,
progress in thought and the amelioration of
man. But it is not many years since Bis
marck sounded warning note of another
kind. 1t was not aimed at foreign foe, but
an internal one, namely, sensualism. He
said that dissipation was sapping the manli-
ness of the nation. All of that mighty
lOTce OI uuulan energy cAl1eO up Dy CQe pO-
litical agitations of Bismarck's early days
turned from the noble channels of lofty en-
deavor to petty indulgence ard base gratifca-
tions. The beer and music gardens con-
quered the all conquering Germans and their
warmsst friends have mourned over it. In
another direction the energies of that power
full people were turned into fields of scienti-
fc discovery and Virchow and Buchner, not
to mention Darwin and other outsiders, led
the excited minds into all the dazzling mys-
teries of organic creation and development,
and the destructive school of Bible critics at
Stuttgart, with Bauer at the head, paved the
way for widespread materialism that has
borne fruit in this age.
But in France all is national, all is fixed
upon one idea ultimately and that idea de-
stroys the possibility of any alarming spirit
of neutrality or Indifference. Legitimist,
Imperialist, Republican or Socialist believe
in France, and once France is exalted the
factions can settle somehow which shall rule.
This national ambition is not one of con-
quest, but looks only to the Rhenish border,
to Alsace and the old provinces where Ger
many stands in the way. The name of Ger
man brings up spectre that all Frenchmen
Loyalty hate.
Now the man of France who nurses this
hatred of Germany is the citizen, the free
and independent bourgeois. He is in the
army and he stands to-day in the same rela-
ton to the struggle for nationality that his
German counterpart did in 1870 toward the
unification of Germany. The regular army
of Germany is a body of conscripts, and
made up of peasants who cannot evade the
rigorous draft. This peasant conscript lives
in the barracks and has all the traditions of
imperial service to hold him to his work He
was menial out of the army, and his pickel-
haube and breechloader makes him man of
consequence. Beyond what this boorish en-
thusiasm for strong crown amounts to,
Bismarck cannot hope for popular support
outside of Prussia. The burgher or citizen
element in the standing army is independent
It is voluntary in a sense, is self-sustaining
lives outside the barracks and looks upon
the service as an evil and burden to be
avoided. When this element comes to be
the crown must show good reason for its ac-
ton or the Landwehr will not stand to its
work. The1brunt of battle in a new conflict
with France will doubtless fall upon the ig-
norant peasantry of Germany, who can be
held to their posts and will have a sort of
brute enthusiasm, good so long as kept in
motion. But Bismarck never yet won q fight
with such material. In 1866 the Prussian
schoolmaster whipped the Austrian boor at
Sadowa. That was the boast of the time.
In 1870 the schoolmaster and his enthusiastic
young ally from the burgher class stuck to-
gether for the uni6cation of Germany at Sc
dan. Both then made way under the empire
for huge standing army of the most illite-
rate orders who could not escape by emigra-
tion, or get exemption through privileges
open to the burgher class, and so the man in
pickel -haube to day is peasant. His French
antagonist will be citizen whose heart is in
his work, and whose nation is his God.